Cultural

Please join us at the Opening
Reception
on Thursday, 27 January, 20:00
in the presence of the artist

Exhibition Duration:
27 January – 19 March 2011

Tue-Fri 12-8 p.m., Sat 12-4 p.m.
and by appointment

Alan Michael’s paintings explore the dynamic of cultural image transaction and artistic
lineage. Borrowing his subject matter from both art historical and media sources,
Michael’s large-scale canvases magnify their appropriated imagery; rendered with a
cold, almost mechanical aesthetic, his paintings resonate with a sense of the uncanny,
making the familiar seem alien and inured. Through his interwoven referencing,
Michael adapts the ideologies associated with various art historical movements to
highlight his subjects as hierarchical emblems, situated within, and co-opted by, often
conflicting power structures. Through their sterile aesthetic, Michael’s paintings isolate
symbolic fragments of contemporary experience, rendering their meaning as bereft,
corrupted, and infinitely seductive.

Alan Michael talks to Brad Phillips about his work:

“With the combination of text and figurative works the basic premise was that I
was really interested in the parallel trajectories of Pop and Photorealism. I think
it’s interesting that they both have broadly similar subject matter and timelines but
generally have different politics and values projected onto them. I was also trying
to focus on fixations people seem to have with the past – politics, products, culture
etc. I didn’t make exactly faux-pop works but I wanted to use that reference point of
the text painting. I was thinking about branding boards as well, format wise. When I
made my show ‘Decamp’ at David Kordansky’s gallery in LA, I was right in the middle
of these ideas. In the paintings, I obscured and distorted texts behind bottles and
other glassware, which as a collection is a motif I associate with the middle classes of
the UK.”